


wine glass & wild cards

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [36]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25220026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt: beau and jester play a gameor,beau is extremely gay & jester finds an excuse to spend time with her
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 1
Kudos: 115





	wine glass & wild cards

The Fancy Flop, like all good bars, is small, dimly lit, and grimy. The bar itself is sticky with spilled drinks that have accumulated over time into a thin lacquer that coats the dark-red wood; Beau’s cloak sticks to it as she leans over it, making sure that the bartender is well and truly busy with another patron down the opposite end to see her making off with a bottle of her best. She wouldn’t do it ordinarily—and if she had, she wouldn’t’ve set more than the cost of the bottle in its place, as she does now—but she’d spotted the dusty plum purple bottle earlier and couldn’t get it out of her head. Kamordah—her family—keep popping up like a cursed copper and Beau figures, fuck it, why not face it head on for once?

So yeah. She steals—and then promptly pays for, because the bartender seems like a good enough lady—the bottle and scarpers, out the door and into the street, slipping the bottle into her bag before she catches up to the rest of the Nein wandering their weaving way back to their inn.

‘Beau!’ Fjord greets her, laughing. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes glossy. Beau notes, a little fuzzy herself, that his smile seems way more genuine, way bigger too, ever since he stopped fiddling with his tusks. ‘Where’d you get to?’

‘Around,’ she tells him, makes a big show of complaining when he slings a heavy arm around her shoulder and neck and pulls her in. ‘You’re drunk,’

‘We’re all drunk!’ Caleb corrects. Beau glances sideways to the faintly smiling clerics, shakes her head. ‘Drunk on life, Beauregard!’

It’s her imagination, probably, that makes her think Jester narrows her eyes. Because Beau certainly didn’t earn a look like that, didn’t flinch at the sound of her full name.

‘Drunk on mead, Caleb.’

The man smiles. Tilts his head up to the moon, basks in that reflected light. ‘That too, my friend. That too.’

//

They shepherd everyone back to their rooms and beds. It’s nice how these things go. The shuffle and bump of getting changed, low murmurs from the washroom as teeth are cleaned and faces scrubbed, the creak and slow-rising snores as friends fall into beds. Beau guides a well-toasted Nott into the room she shares with Caleb; he levers himself up on the mattress, firelight crackling around his fingers when they cross the threshold and trip his alarm. He closes his fingers in toward his palm and collapses back onto one elbow, then flat on his back and back into sleep. Beau lifts Nott into bed at Nott’s instruction and Caleb’s muttered agreement; she watches as her friends curl up together without a care for her or what she might see in it, and with a pitcher of water left on the bedside table, Beau leaves them be.

Stepping out into the darkened hall, she catches a glimpse of a horned head and the flick of a spaded-tail as Jester turns the corner, headed down the steps into the common space.

Curious, Beau follows.

It’s habit to drift toward the shadows, instinctual to tread gently and avoid those places in the floorboards where they bend and bow and creak. Even so, she knows she hasn’t managed to hide her approach from Jester, because the girl is waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. Perhaps a little more hidden than she thought, because it isn’t until Beau is a few steps down to where the light of the common room washes pale against the stairs that Jester blinks and shakes her head a little, scattering whatever thoughts had been swirling around in that lovely head of hers, and she peers up into the stairwell to smile at Beau.

‘Oh good! I was hoping you’d come.’

‘Me?’

‘Mhm!’ She holds a hand up to Beau, wriggles her fingers invitingly. ‘Come on!’

‘Where are we going? Jes?’ If Jester gives her an answer, Beau misses it. Her mind is wiped blank by the feel of Jester’s cool fingers twining in hers and the dizzying rush of being _yanked_ forward. And, she excuses herself, flushed, she is already the tiniest bit drunk.

They don’t go far.

Jester has found, it seems, a mostly hidden table in the inn built into the corner. Support beams and walls block anyone’s view of the table and the roof sits low overhead. It’s close to the kitchen and awfully warm, fires still smouldering away to heat the water in gurgling pipes, and the scent of fresh-baked breads wafts out on curls of steam. Jester slips into the alcove first, pulls on the hand she still hasn’t released so that Beau is forced to slide in beside her on the cushioned bench, not across as she would have done otherwise.

‘Nice place you got here.’

Jester grins, bats her lashes. ‘I’m good at finding sneaky places.’

‘I know that,’ Beau nods. ‘Yeah. This,’ she knocks on one of the wooden support posts. Nods again. ‘Solid.’

Jester still hasn’t let go of her hand. Beau swallows. Hopes that her hand doesn’t feel as sweaty as she thinks it does. She always gets alcohol sweats, and with this sauna Jester has found, she can feel her whole body prickling with it.

‘Why are we - you couldn’t sleep?’

‘I’m not tired yet. And I wasn’t drinking.’

‘Milk.’

Jester rolls her eyes. Muffles a small laugh with a look of exasperation, like she can’t believe she’s laughing at such a bad joke. Her fingers slip over Beau’s, tangling and slowly slipping away. Beau makes an attempt to keep hold before she realises what Jester is doing; cheeks flushing, she looks away. Stretches her arms out to rest on the tabletop, fingers drumming on the wood, tracing over the slices and crude carvings, fingers swirling over the letters.

‘I wanted to play a game,’ Jester tells her, pulling from her bag a deck of cards. It makes Beau’s stomach plummet until she realises she doesn’t recognise them: these are not the brightly painted tarot, but considerably smaller and battered.

‘Playing cards?’

‘Uno!’

Beau frowns. ‘The game you wanna play with your dad?’

‘Yeah!’

It’s the drink making her bold, or the closeness of Jester pressed soft to her side, that makes Beau smirk. Tilt her head. ‘If I play this with you, does that make me your daddy?’

Jester smiles back, all sharp teeth and hooded lids. ‘I don’t know, Beau, does it?’

Beau doesn’t recognise the tone, not from Jester anyway, but it sends a bolt of energy lancing through her from the top of her now-prickling scalp to her core. ‘Uh.’ She unsticks her tongue from the dry roof of her mouth. ‘Um.’

Jester giggles. Drops her eyes to the deck, quickly splitting it and shuffling. Beau is thankful that it gives her a moment to recover herself, swear at herself for losing her senses; Beau is not thankful for the way it draws attention to Jester’s clever hands, easily breezily moving the cards through a shuffle, a tilted riffle and a cut, before pressing them in a weave and cutting again.

‘Holy shit. You’re really good at this.’

‘I like cards,’ Jester agrees, nodding, but Beau notes that she looks pleased by the compliment.

‘Is it a problem that I don’t know how to play this?’

The cards explode out of the riffle, scattering across and beneath the table, a few smacking up into their faces.

‘Ow.’

‘Oh no, my cards!’

‘It’s fine, it’s fine, lemme—hold on, let me help,’

Beau dives out of the nook, scrabbles around for the little cards. She slaps a few handfuls onto the table, ducking under it to find the remaining ones as Jester counts. It’s hot, and dark, and Jester’s tail snakes out to tap against Beau’s arm as she fumbles around.

‘Okay down there?’ Jester calls.

Beau grunts. ‘There’s—ugh—it’s like they washed the whole place with beer.’ Her fingers brush against something furry that moves as she yelps, moves back too fast and knocks her head hard on the table above. ‘Ow—fuck!’

‘Beau!’

‘I’m fin—are you _laughing_?’ Beau slides out from under the table, peeks over to confirm that Jester is indeed laughing at her, wounded in the course of finding her fucking cards. ‘Wow. Real cool,’ she complains, though her hearts not in it. Not with the way Jester is having to fight to keep from busting a rib, eyes glittering with it. ‘Did I get all the damn cards?’

Jester counts them quickly. ‘Two missing,’ she tells Beau, who sighs and crawls beneath the table again, this time pulling down her goggles.

The first she finds under the opposite bench, while the second takes a little looking. It isn’t until Jester moves her feet to try and help that Beau sees it, the thin card stuck in the floorboards by Jester’s feet. She reaches out, knuckles grazing against Jester’s stockinged leg, and plucks it up.

‘Got ‘em!’

Beau climbs up, flops into place beside Jester, who takes the cards with a quiet,

‘Thank you, Beau.’ She glances up at her from under her eyelashes. Her smile is small, not her typical blinding beam, but very sweet.

‘S-sure. Don’t mention it.’ Beau rubs at the top of her head. ‘I think I broke my skull. Am I bleeding?’

‘Lemme see.’ Jester wriggles up onto her knees, bending over Beau’s head. She’s of a height where Beau has to keep herself very still and maybe close her eyes because Jester’s chest is right there—and then her eyes flash open with the feeling of cold lips on hot skin, pressing gently to the bruised spot, and the warm fizzing feeling of magic crawling out from that space. ‘There,’ Jester says, sitting back, the green light fading from her eyes. ‘All better.’

Beau mumbles something that was hopefully an agreement, and tries to hide behind the cards Jester hands her.


End file.
